"So do I. The estate needs her - I need her," said Austin. "Spence got one more piece of information from the girl at the school. It seems Georgia got a scholarship to an art academy. He found the academy, and they confirmed she was registered to attend, but she never showed up."
"Around the time the girl died in the car crash?"
"Same summer."
"So if she is alive, there has to be another Georgia Marie James out there somewhere. It's not a very common name," said Michael. "It shouldn't be too hard to find her."
"I hope you're right," said Austin.
"James is a very common name," Carl corrected.
"But Georgia James isn't," Michael argued.
"How does a woman do that to her own child?" Jackie asked.
"Wait a minute," said Carl, "If Nick and his daughter weren't really estranged, why didn't he ask Laura about it after he found out? He lived for another week, didn't he?"
"I think he might have, but she must have denied it. He didn't say anything to me about asking her, but then he died before he could, I suppose."
"What's the real story on Laura?" Carl asked. "A mother doesn't abandon a child without a very good reason."
"Laura loves her husband, and her husband loves money - lots of it," Austin answered. "She does whatever he wants, but the cost to her is high. She started to drink about the time they came back from France and is still a heavy drinker."
"Nick couldn't convince her to leave Mathew?" Michael asked.
"He tried numerous times. When he started seeing expensive jewelry on the credit card statements, he showed them to his daughter and asked if Mathew had given them to her. The answer, of course, was no, and even that didn't convince her. Later, we discovered several pieces of jewelry had been returned for cash. It was a pattern we saw over and over."
"Once a crook, always a crook," Carl muttered. "You charge the jewelry to his father-in-law, and then use the cash to pay off your gambling debts. Very ingenious."
"Ingenious enough to hide a child for years," Jackie added.
"I wish you could see Mathew in court," Austin said. "He holds his wife's hand to impress the judge, but it is easy to see that nothing could be more foreign to him. How he keeps her sober enough to be there is beyond me too. Nick would be…" Austin lowered his eyes and didn't finish his sentence.
"You feel sorry for Laura?" Jackie asked.
"I do. She is a lot like her father in many ways, but she didn't inherit his strength."